Tag: toronto

It’s only been two days into 2018, and I’ve already managed to break my New Year’s Resolution for a ~new year new me~. Realistically, I managed to break it an hour into 2018, at the New Year’s party that I was at.

A few weeks ago, after I had just turned 24, I decided that there was a lot I wanted to do before I reached 25 – sort of like my own quarter life crisis. One of the things high on my list was to be more open to dating , be less shy and go with the flow when it comes to boys (for anyone that knows me knows that this is not typical of my usual dating behaviour). After a slow 2017 year consisting of only a handful of dates, a fling with Mr. Fast Food, and one random make out in South America – I decided this year I was going to put myself out there and have some fun, before I missed my chance.

There I went – jumping right back on the horse (aka downloading an app), and was actually having fun chatting with some nice and cute guys. This won’t be so bad I thought, dating can maybe even be fun as I tried to embrace my new mindset. Flash forward to New Year’s Eve at a big concert party in the six that I was very excited about. There was a great band playing, I was going with some great friends and most importantly the venue had a food court (I even got my face printed on a macaroon – HOW FUN)! The thought of talking to any boys was not really on my radar, nor even a possibility in my mind.

The party was great – we were dancing and having so much fun! In the middle of dancing, Sam, looked at me, and pointed out a cute guy who was apparently staring at me. I caught a quick glimpse and he was cute but I didn’t think anything of it as he walked past, maybe just confusing me for someone else. Not even a minute later he 180’s and backtracks to my group, not breaking eye contact the entire time, where I was and pulls me aside asking if I wanted to dance – how romantic! He was so cute, clearly interested and I had the approval from my friends that he was not only legit, but a great guy- what the hell was I waiting for. I don’t know if it was my shock of this happening or the fact that I’m really awkward– but I panicked for some stupid reason I decided that the appropriate response to what I was hoping would happen to me one day was “no thanks, I’m not a very good dancer”, with what I thought was a flirtatious giggle. WHAT. Immediately regretting my decision, because it was dumb AF, I tried to explain that I did want to but that I was just bad at dancing, which in a crowded bar, was really just blabbering on. As I tried to salvage what may be left of my screw up, I realized that I had just messed up, when I should have just said “yes” and Mr.New Years had already decided that I wasn’t interested . A few minutes later he walked away and when I turned around, I already knew I screwed up and had that confirmation from my friends, who told me to run and find him and give him my number (which I most obviously didn’t do).

So this little, not even a really big deal to most people encounter started my new years off with a crash (instead of a bang 😉 ). The year that I wanted to be #noregrets, started off with a BIG regret. How could I want to be so bold and fun and embrace the single wild and free, and when a boy is there, basically on a silver platter in front of me, I manage to turn it away. After debriefing when we got home from the party, and mustering up courage to add him on Facebook New Year’s Day (aggressive, I know, but he did accept)! Not dancing with this boy may seem like the silliest thing, and you may even be wondering why on earth I actually spent time and wrote a blog post about it. But I am using this as my explanation to re-start my resolution and keep this regret and reminder as the push I need when faced in that same situation again. I feel like writing this town solidifies the fact that I will need to be more bold and open to new experiences, because if not now then when?

So with that, Happy New Year – hopefully I’ll have some more posts to share this year 😉

They say that things happen when you’re not looking, and that’s exactly what happened to Mr. Fast food and I.

Flashback to the spring: work was busy, my social life was crowded, and I was counting down until my summer vaca, which was filled with travel. Needless to say my dating life was at a standstill and I had sworn off dating – “I’ll look for a boyfriend in September” is what I told my pestering friends and family and once they agreed to believe that, my life was in balance.

Until one day I came to work and my co-worker, giddy as ever, ran up to me announcing “I have a boy” with excitement I was ready to listen to her recent boy story, until she finished her thought and said “for you”. Before hearing anything about him I quickly told her thanks but no thanks that I was sticking with it and like I just said, I had sworn off dating and was not about to change my mind. Well this didn’t stop her and she continued with it, telling me about this guy: cute, smart and most importantly funny. Though my interest was peaked I stood my ground and told her I was not interested. She asked if she could give him my number to which I said (surprisingly) no, to which she proceeded with “okay I’ll message it to him” before I could even respond.

Before I knew it, Mr. Fast Food started messaging me and just as quickly my heart started fluttering. Some creeping confirmed he was cute, and his texts made me LOL (for real) on more than one occasion, that when he asked to hang out I was already hooked and I broke my own promise and said yes.

I met him for Sunday afternoon coffee, at which we both ordered hot chocolate (can you say match made in heaven), and maybe it was all the sugar but our energy was undeniable with a date lasting 3 hours and I still didn’t want it to end. He was confident, unfiltered and hilarious, he’s not an awkward person but the first date awkwardness vanished basically before the date began. He messaged me by the time I got home, and the chatting continued until he secured himself a second date and I made it very clear that I was very into him.

Our next few dates exploring the six consisted of dinners, ice cream dates, Jays games and patio drinks. Each one was more fun than the last and I was hooked. The best part about Mr fast food was that he loved to cook and he was great at it too. He really understood that the way to my heart was through my stomach and always cooked the best meals and treats – it might have been part of the reason I was always so excited to hang with him (just kidding…).

It was the most comfortable I’ve ever been so quickly with anyone that the sleepovers, hook ups and ~deep~ convos came earlier than I could have ever expected. I was so into him, and was so comfortable with him that he became my number 2 (meaning the second guy I’ve ever slept with) and it was great. Not only did I get to break my year-long dry spell (I know) but I overcame the idea that sex with someone new would be awkward and weird – but that it was fun and just as great as I remembered 😉

However, Mr. Fast Food became less available as he traded his job at the vet with cute dogs for a cook at a new burgers and fries joint (not complaining because I love both), but the change of hours made him less available which sucked because I was leaving the six for the summer. Our ‘pre me leaving’ hangouts were becoming less and less and also began consisting of more movies, and Netflix and chills without as much of the chill. I chalked it up to our post-work hangouts that left us tired and didn’t worry about it at all. I left for the Pacific Northwest not thinking much of it and speaking to Mr. fast food everyday – whether it be talk or FaceTime and even referred to him with the “boyfriend” term on the trip because that’s where I thought it was heading.

Once I came home after a month – I couldn’t find the excitement to see him. After a month apart I went over to see him (mostly out of obligation) and was not impressed when his idea for our date day was to “watch a movie and nap”. And by watch a movie I don’t mean “watch a movie ;)” but actually finish the film. Huh. I could tell the vibe was off and it felt like I was hanging with an old pal rather than a new flame and that wasn’t going to work for me. I did the cowardish thing and blamed a headache for the reason of my quick depart, frantically sped dialling my best friend that I didn’t like him anymore and didn’t know what to do. I successfully avoided his texts for an entire weekend until I had to face it on Monday – I needed to break up with Mr. fast food. He took it well and we parted ways – still on good terms talking about the CNE and tossing each other the occasional Instagram like (I mean what says “friendship” more than that?!)

Like fast food, I was addicted for a bit until I realized that this thing with Mr. Fast Food wasn’t sustainable. Though Mr. Fast Food was funny and nice, he lacked the ambition and drive that I needed for this to go “next level”. Needless to say my motto is still fries over guys, even if the guys come with fries.

Carrie – For the past nine months, I have withheld my re-born again virginity from potential suitors in hopes that the next guy that I slept with would amount to something more. Not necessarily as in a boyfriend and not even necessarily more than one night (although ideal) – I’m talking about someone that I felt a connection with.

What was this weird self-imposed pressure to make it meaningful? Well, you see, the next guy I would sleep with would be my tenth. For someone who lost her virginity to someone she loved for five years after, I hadn’t ever envisioned myself having sex with more than one partner, much less eight others after that. Sex should be something more than lust, right? I started losing what sex had meant to me so I became infactuated with this idea that hitting double digits – the big 10 – should be something. Maybe 10 would even be my next One + Nothing (1 + 0) because everyone else before that didn’t really mean much.

Yet alas, the spell has been broken…

10(a) : Mr. High School Musical

Upon heading back into the cesspool that is Ottawa from my May abroad, I felt hopeful my first few days of June. “Summer is the best season in Ottawa,” everyone boasted. With a best friend from the 6ix moving in with me for the summer and a good drinking crew, I was looking forward to Canada’s 150th anniversary in the capital.

I’ve been told that the story of this night seems so ridiculous that it is like something out of a movie. As such, like most movies this post comes with a rating:

R – the following blog post is rated R for Relationship. If you are in a relationship, proceed reading with caution and hold all judgement for the comment section below.

Mr. UK Bae, a film by Samantha Jones.

The scene is downtown San Francisco. Two girls (Samantha and Charlotte) are on vacation and staying in a dorm at a hostel. A couple from London, Mr. UK Bae and his girlfriend of a year “Andie” are in the dorm as well. Andie looooves UKB, but he’s a little more meh about her.

That night, all 4 attend the hostel pub crawl along with 50 of their new best friends. The night starts off as innocuous as any and at the second stop of the night everyone finds out it’s Samantha’s birthday. From there the drinks start flowing and soon enough she is very drunk….the following is her account of the rest of that night….

My 24th birthday was one of the best of my life. I was on vacation in San Francisco, had gotten my first tattoo earlier that day, and was having the time of my life with not a care in the world. The only thing getting me down was “Ken”, a guy from my hostel who could not take a hint and was hanging off my neck most of the night. By the third bar I was officially over this stage-75 clinger and asked UK Bae for help in getting away from him. He grabbed my hand and led to the dance floor out of the clutches of Klinger Ken. There, amongst the crowd of gyrating bodies, we stood perfectly still, holding hands and not breaking eye contact. I don’t know what it was about this guy but from the moment we met I was attracted to his vibe. Now, standing there on the packed dance floor I was definitely feeling a slightly different vibe, so dropped his hand and walked away to grab another drink.

Some time (and many drinks) later I stumbled outside for some much needed fresh air. I stood there catching my breath when UK Bae walks around the corner laughing at me standing there doubled over, trying not hurl.

I honestly don’t know who made the first move but the next thing I know he’s pressed me up against a wall and we’re engaged in what I can only describe as the hottest make out session of my whole damn life. I know it was morally wrong, this is why I put the rating at the beginning of the post, but something about the “badness” of the situation made the whole thing 10000% hotter and I was totally caught up in the heat of the moment.

We reluctantly separate and go back to the bar to avoid suspicion, where Charlotte and Andie are looking for us to hit the next bar on the list. Andie was NOT happy that she’d been left alone and broke down begging him never to leave her again. He told her he’d been helping me since I was sick (semi-true) and Charlotte accepted this at face value, I have no idea what Andie must’ve been thinking.

We acted causal the rest of the night and ended up heading back to our dorm in a pack including him and I, Andie, Charlotte and the guy she picked up for the night, and a blonde AF, Frodo-looking sir who really wanted to walk me home. Friggen squad goals. I suppose a nicer person would’ve felt guilty about the situation but maybe I’m not all that nice a person…Help me out here people, was I wrong to break “Girl Code” or is the onus on him to not make a fool of his girlfriend? The cavalier way in which he so easily crossed that line REALLY makes me suspect I am not the first person to be his “Other Woman”…I’m not justifying my actions…but maybe I am.

Back in our shared dorm, I’m on the top-bunk when I get a very racy text from the bed across from mine. It was UK Bae. In what felt like a scene from a really bad teen movie we begin texting back and forth what we want to do to the other while Andie and Charlotte lie sleeping below us. The whole thing was so naughty that the tension was almost too much to take. We planned to wait till everyone was asleep to make our move and I eventually fell asleep too.

A few strong taps wake me up and and soon I’m on my way to meet him in the shower room down the hall. Why the shower room you may ask? Well, hooking up in hostels is HARD, especially when the person you’re hooking up with is travelling with a significant other. I don’t think she was too interested in having a threesome, so we needed to make alternative plans.

Anyway, after all that build up we immediately got it on in what was one of the sexiest experiences I’ve had in a long time. I’m a girl who likes a little roughness and he seemed to know just what I wanted. The whole thing didn’t last more than 15 minutes, but hey, after about 5 hours of foreplay can you really blame the guy?

We head back to our respective beds and I wake up the next morning still turned on from the events of the night before. Hell, I’m even getting a little turned on thinking about it as I write this. He had some sort of crazy sexual hold over me where all logic and morality flew out the window, replacing all my thoughts with the image of us fooling around in that alley outside the bar.

Now, I know what I did wrong. Andie is a very nice girl and had any guy done that to a friend of mine I’d castrate him. But the circumstances and distance between their lives and mine made the whole thing feel surreal, and boy did it feel good to be bad. By the time Charlotte and I returned to our hostel the next night they’d checked out (this was planned and not a consequence of our actions) so whether or not he tells her is none of my concern. All I can say is Happy Birthday to me, I’m one year older, wiser and a little sluttier too 😛

What’s the most vile word in the English language when it comes to matters of the heart? I’ll give you a hint: Seth Cohen noticed it, Chandler Bing embodied it, and if you’re a millennial in today’s dating scene, you probably smell of it.

Did you guess? If you did, well done! You’ve correctly identified the number one most avoided noun in the history of verbiage. Desperation in any form is bad enough as it is…no one says they’re jumping for joy desperation or choose to make the desperate choice first, but when it comes to dating this effect is 100 times worse.

Recently I heard an interesting podcast about the dominant hookup culture that rules the day (I swear my life doesn’t fully revolve around dating – just mostly). Sociologist Lisa Wade explained how a woman would rather be called a slut than be called desperate, because a slut may have slept with a bunch of guys but the desperate girl…well….at least when you’re a slut someone wants you.

*PAUSE TO TAKE IN THE FKD UP-NESS OF THAT SITUATION*

What’s so sad is that I can’t even say that this is something I don’t identify with. I have definitely been in the unfortunate situation (more than once) where I did something with someone that I wasn’t fully comfortable with just to feel wanted, to feel like I fit in, or that I’m just like everyone else. Well, I’m here to tell you that the sad truth is that sleeping around doesn’t make you like everyone else. In fact, feeling desperate and alone probably brings you closer to feeling like the rest of us than getting laid does.

According to this article in NOW Magazine, which went absolutely VIRAL in Toronto, us Millenials are significantly less sexually active than our Gen X predecessors. People claim to be too busy for something meaningful and overwhelmed by all the option, and it’s really no wonder why. We work longer hours, spend more time with friends than family and let’s face it, technology is complicating everything. At the tips of our fingers are option after option making people feel dispensable, so should we really be surprised when they treat us like we are?

It’s unsurprising that if you’re constantly talking about sex but not having it that you’d wind up feeling a little desperado, and there is absolutely no shortage to the sexual imagery that exists in every facet of our culture. Even as I write this I’m surrounded by content hell-bent on turning me into an attention-seeking single. The desperate divas from The Bachelor Women Tell All are whining on TV, I’m listening to James Arthur’s “You’re Nobody till Somebody Loves You” and that article I mentioned earlier? The ad at the end was actually promoting a dating event for foodies!! ‘Foody call’…very subtle LOBLAWS.

Realistically, sex when you’re dating falls into two main categories: a) completely meaningless or b) meaning everything. I swear, now more than ever, the only time you DON’T have sex with someone is when you actually like them. As if the very intimate act in and of itself is proof that you don’t care about the person you’re sleeping with. WHAT KIND OF TWISTED LOGIC IS THAT? Most shocking of all, this mentality is something we women actually STRIVE for. We want to appear aloof, detached and totally okay with it…the less you care the better off you are. HAH. That sounds healthy…

There really is no win for women because men want it both ways: they want a sexually deviant, hot woman who knows what she’s doing in the bedroom until they don’t. For a woman to be deemed acceptable of “wife-ing up” she should still be seen as “wholesome and respectful”, which apparently doesn’t mean being overtly sexual or too comfortable in the bedroom. See the problem? Not only do men have ALL the power in relationships, but they condemn us for embodying the very ideals that they promote. Most of the time we end up feeling cheap and desperate because the only thing harder than getting someone interested in you is keeping that interest for more than 10 seconds.

I had a very illuminating experience last weekend. I approached a guy at the bar and we had a great convo for quite a while. My friend “Julie” ended up cock-blocking me so when he asked me for my number later that night I was stoked. Well, without my knowledge, another friend of mine, “Sara”, berated her for being the world’s worst-wingwoman and told Julie to go fix the situation. Julie claims he asked her where I was but I have my doubts. The result? Me, left wondering if he asked for my number because he liked me or because someone told him to…Worst of all – how PATHETIC I feel for even explaining this to whomever reads this blog. Why? Because this shouldn’t be a big deal at all, but what started out as a nice interaction/little ego-boost ended up rocking my self-esteem. When I messaged him later that night and got no reply I immediately felt like I was the poor girl who needed her friends to get someone to talk to her, even though I’m not. And that is not a good feeling.

As women we are often too hard on ourselves. We overthink our interactions with men and then get mad at ourselves for overthinking them – all because we don’t want to appear, you guessed it, DESPERATE. Who knows, maybe with time I’ll stop caring so much about looking some type of way. If a guy doesn’t like me for who I am then that’s on him not me. I’ll forget my fears and feel confident enough to say: “Hey, you’re great and we should hang out”.

FFS this post is delayed. Though unintended I have taken 2.5 months to get this sucker out…As such, here’s a little #TBT for your Thursday afternoon….

It was an ordinary November afternoon when I received a Snapchat message from good ole’ Boston Boy (upgraded to Boston Babe), my super sweet fling from the summer who took me to baseball games and held my hand at the dinner table. It said: “Hey, do you know any good places to eat in downtown Toronto?” I laughed to myself, realizing that this was exactly how he’d started our very first tinder convo (yes, I have that good a memory). I was in the middle of a drrrry spell…one that actually started when B-Boy left Toronto back in August. Work was out of control busy, I was studying for a grad school entrance exam, and had a general apathy toward dating of any kind, so ya, I didn’t hesitate setting up our date.

We agreed to meet at his hotel and I showed up nervous and excited. After all, I hadn’t seen the guy in almost 3 months and couldn’t even remember if I thought he was cute. He ended up getting stuck at work so I decided to make the best of the situation and grabbed a glass of wine and a seat at the bar. I ended up chatting to the guy at the stool next to me (don’t get the wrong idea, he was well over 50) and had a pretty hilarious time. I felt a little like the star of my own version of “Pretty Woman”, trying to set up a client while waiting for another to arrive. The gentleman asked if I was staying in the hotel, to which I replied: “Nope just visiting a friend” just as Boston Babe showed up, looking way cuter than I remembered I may add. I struggled to find my credit card and pay for the drink only looking up when the bartender yelled “THAT WAS THE SMOOTHEST THING I’VE EVER SEEN”. Always considerate, my Boston Babe had subtly paid the tab and grabbed my stuff. All I could do was muster a quiet “thank you” and grab his hand before heading straight for the elevators.

The rest of the night was honestly amazing. We hooked up, ate pizza in bed, hot-tubbed, hooked up, watched a movie, slept, and again hooked up. It was as if we picked up right where we let off and quickly transitioned from ‘what’ve you been up to’ pleasantries to meaningful conversation. I left the next morning, after enjoying a complimentary hotel breakfast, feeling elated and excited to see him again. Oh! and I mustn’t forget that the gentleman from the bar the night before turned up again, this time sitting across from me as I ate toast and scrambled eggs, while I kept my blushing cheeks pointed to my plate.

Fast forward a few weeks and I am in a full-on ‘fling-lationship’. I dub this term to explain the otherwise uncategorically expressed phenomenon: I was 100% in a relationship for a very defined period of time. We texted, ate meals together, talked about our days, and spent a lot of time together. By the last week of his trip I had definitely grown attached, more than to just having someone in my life but to him as well. We went skating one night and as he held my hands and skated backwards, guiding us around the rink I couldn’t help but think: “Why does he have to leeeeaaaveeee”. I was so happy to continue doing what we were doing that I couldn’t help but feel slighted to have found someone I get along with so well when he happens to live in another country. A country with a president like Trump no less.

We had some very deep life chats over the course of a couple weeks, even getting into our pasts and relationship deal breakers which is something I rarely share with my male companions. I admitted mine is overemotional guys…ya, I’m pretty callous…hence my hesitance to share. It turned out I needn’t worry, as his exes always complained that he didn’t open up and was too emotionally reserved…Well no wonder we friggen got along so well! I don’t like to talk about feelings with the guy I’m dating and he doesn’t like to talk about feelings. period.

Well, while our mutual fear of intimacy made for a perfect fling, it also made it kind of hard to understand if the feelings I was developing were real. By the end of his trip my mind had turned into a broken record “Should I say how I feel? Could he feel the same way? Am I asking to be rejected by a guy who admittedly doesn’t open up??” I continued this one-woman game of ‘relationship chicken’, torn between taking a risk or letting this great guy just pass me by until it was suddenly our last night together and I still hadn’t said anything. You’d think I’d be capable of uttering a simple “Hey, I like you and I’d actually give this a shot…what do you think?”, but I just couldn’t bring myself to do it.

Despite my overwhelming cowardice we had a great night. Well, no…Let me clarify. I had a perfectly good night but he was clearly VERY off…to this day I don’t know what was wrong but he didn’t enjoy the physical part of our relationship in the same way he had throughout all the time we’d spent together prior. Maybe he was also playing relationship chicken and was more wrapped up in his thoughts than in my embrace? Maybe he had a rough day at work? Who knows. I

left the next morning knowing that it’d be the last time I saw him. Whether or not he felt the way I did one thing was clear: neither of us had the balls to turn this into anything real and without someone stepping up to the plate we’d go down in history as the greatest potential relationship never to reach the major leagues.

We had a great time together and while losing him stung a bit, I was over it after a couple days and quickly dove back into work, studying and not giving a fuck about dating. I won’t be the type of girl always at someone else’s beck and call, so if he ever came back to T.O., single or not, our fling-lationship would remain safely where it belongs: on my blog.

Let me start off by saying that this wasn’t always the case. In fact, flashback to a year ago and this was basically polar opposite to how I was feeling. I broke up with my first real boyfriend, Mr. High School Crush, just a month before Valentines Day. My heartbreak was coinciding with (what felt like) the whole world beginning to be covered in hearts and declaration of love – basically everything that I was trying to hide from. As a recently single lady, I felt an urge to knock down all of the red and pink displays, rip down decorations that I saw and felt overwhelmingly compelled to either push or yell at couples, especially those showing PDA. Though in reality I did none of these things (except some eye-rolling and disgusted sounds at several couples) I felt like a monster who just hated anything that had to do with love and especially Valentines Day.

I guess I felt worried to be spending the holiday alone, because the memories that I had made over the 3 years prior were engrained in my mind as what Valentines Day should be. A holiday full of romantic dinners and getaways, overly expensive roses and red lingerie. How the hell was I going to celebrate make it through that Valentines Day with these preconceived ideas in my head. There was no other way to say it except that Valentine’s Day made me sick.

Lucky for me, last year I not only learned how to celebrate Valentine’s Day, but I had the best Valentine’s by a long shot and the best part of all was that (no Mr. High School Crush and I did not get back together), I didn’t even have a boyfriend to celebrate with. With no boyfriend or just one assumed Valentine, my friends and family boosted my heartbreak by offering to be my Valentine. With multiple Valentine’s in my circle, though they pitied me for being single, there was a perk that I ended up with more chocolate than I could have imagined (definitely more chocolate than I ever got from a boyfriend) – it was already looking up. On the actual day, I had no more worry that I would be spending it alone because I got to celebrate my first “Galentine’s Day” which surpassed any Valentine’s date I’ve ever had. What could be better than a group of single girlfriends, LOTS of food, dessert and most importantly wine?! Thanks to my own friends and family I was able to not only make it through the most dreaded holiday of a single girl, but I actually and genuinely really enjoyed it.

Now I’m here. A year later. Still single, and I am excited for Valentine’s Day. Maybe it was last years festivities, or my year to reflect and think and be happy with my #singlestatus, but this year I am embracing the holiday in the most Hallmark love filled way you can imagine. Because that’s exactly what I am celebrating: LOVE. My life, as I’ve learned, is more full of love than it ever has been. I know that it’s cheesy, but as February rolled around I felt an urge to feel more loving to my friends and family, to myself and to my life. With hearts basically everywhere that you turn, it’s hard not to think about love, whether it’s romantic or not and to feel that uplifting loving vibe. To me, Valentine’s serves as a reminder to show the special people in your life that you love them. To indulge in sweets, make cards and show the people that you care about them how much you really do. I am excited for my second annual Galentines day and am secretly hoping that my friends and I stay single for a while so this tradition can continue (just kidding…sorry ladies). Maybe the girls in Sex and the City were right, and that our girlfriends really are our soulmates, and if so that is what we should be celebrating when it comes to celebrating love! I am excited that I have SO many people to celebrate and am thankful that there’s a holiday to remind me to show how much I love and care about the people in my life. (Not to mention, the holiday continues to February 15 where all of the chocolate is discounted 😉 )

I can now look at couples and instead of wanting to pull them apart or flip their table at a restaurant, I can be happy for people who are happy to be in love. Maybe because it makes me hopeful that my love is out there somewhere too, or that it shows me how beautiful and fun love can be! I am no longer a cynical love hating monster, but now I can actually listen to, and help, my friends think of the cutest most romantic Valentine’s gestures for their significant others without feeling queasy while we talk about it.

Love is everywhere this month whether we want to it to or not. And even if we don’t have that special someone to share the day with, we should be looking for all those special people that surround us with love on February 14th and the other 364 days of the year.

P.s. let me know how you’re celebrating this year I’m a sucker for a good Valentine’s story 😉

Carrie – Move over Bachelor in Paradise, there’s a new show called Bachelorette in Hell and it is my love life. (That was cheesy, I apologize.)

Throughout the first few weeks of January, in order to get over my obsession with Mr. Heart Emoji, I distract myself with an app called Bumble where the girl has to talk to the guy first. Now, I’m pretty good with alluring men with one liners. In fact, I arrange three dates in one weekend.

Carrie – In true blackout fashion, I remember saying “cheers” with my gal pal and Mr. Heart Emoji on our third round of tequila shots. Then not much more.

I am blackout at the pre but in cruel, cruel fashion, my brain can recall one interaction. Profusely flirting with Mr. Grilled Cheese, we end up as the only two people in the one of two rooms, probably because I was making everyone uncomfortable with my aggressive flirtation. (I was told later I was doing this IN FRONT OF Mr. Heart Emoji because I am a fuckgirl). I drunkenly confess to Mr. Grilled Cheese, “Well like you’re the last person I’ve slept with! Aren’t I the last person you’ve slept with?”

I still cringe at how much of an embarrassment I like to make my life. Then he stutters “uhhhh” for approximately a minute. I save him by telling him I know I’m not, call him a manwhore, and top it off with a, “But I know you’re into me.” To my dismay, he answers, “A little bit.” Me: “A little bit?” “Yeah, a little bit.” I swear I probably would have mounted him right there if we weren’t in public cause I am such a horny little drunk.

I end up at a bar. How I got there, not too sure. As far as I’m concerned, Mr. Grilled Cheese was not there. I remember snippets of sitting in a booth with my gal pals and Mr. Heart Emoji, and also snippets of drinking water out of the bathroom faucet, just to prove that 23 is still not a classy age. I think I had fun and my Visa bill proves that.

Accurate depiction of me receiving my visa bill.

Now the next bit is where it gets interesting. There is a 24 hour diner near the bars in Ottawa. At that point, I was not aware of this. (Now that I am, that Visa bill will only continue to grow.)

Mr. Heart Emoji and I wind up there. Alone. I deduce he must have asked me to go at 2 AM because I’m confused why we’re in a booth alone and none of our friends join us. But I happily order a $16 burger (one that I later proceed not to eat a single bite of) when a classmate shows up. Now let’s call him Tree cause he is ridiculously tall and dresses like a lumberjack. Tree starts by asking if he’s interrupting me and Mr. Heart Emoji. We say no, then he sits beside me and Tree asks, “but you guys are gonna bang tonight, right?”

Carrie – I’ve gotten to a point in my romantic experience, or perhaps my confidence level, where I can tell where I stand socially when I walk into a party of new people. I can tell the girls that want to be my friend and those that are wary cause I’m new meat and they’re not sure if I’m a threat or not. I can tell which guys are not interested and which guys want to take up some of my time to see if they are. The latter are the guys that stand by you at the party in a social group they know, just to put less space between you two. They’ll accidentally bump into you if you’re at a party when someone passes by or they’ll do a turn on the dance floor at an opportune beat to start dancing with you. Sometimes I’ll entertain the conversations by the food table while I munch on the free chips, mainly so I don’t look like that big of an antisocial fatty. However, I’m a firm believer in not leading a guy on that I have no interest in and I’m an expert at being straight-up with a guy to say no. Actually, I’m quite rude. But I’d rather be alone than feel lonelier trying to feel something for someone who it’s just not there with.

All this confidence is lost when it comes to a guy that I actually like.